On the day following the announcement that the United States has officially been in recession for  a year, more than 250 leaders in the educational technology industry are meeting today to discuss “Financing Growth” in educational technology with members of the venture capital and private equity communities at the annual SIIA Ed Tech Business Forum in New York.

Although there is plenty of supporting detail in the presentations as they unfold, the high level summary is about what you’d expect in this not-quite-dismal but certainly cautious economic climate. In fact, a new particularly apt descriptive term  being used to describe current buyers and sellers is “Turtle Heads.”

A recurring refrain throughout the presentations is the strategic importance of maintaining focus on keeping the business core fundamentals strong. Even during this volatile time, cautious investors are still looking at strong companies. But companies must be laser-focused on profitability.

Good companies (as they always do) will help their customers protect their income streams. So, for districts, this means maintaining enrollments. Kevin Custer of ARC Capital said that this means, “Successful companies will work actively with districts on managing their decreasing budgets. Help superintendents by understanding the realities of their world and help them:

–Keep more students in school – protect the district income stream.
–Save them money.
–Show how your company/product will increase student performance.

Stay tuned for more insights into the current investment strategies in educational technology.

P.S. Fellow bloggers today include Lee Wilson and Ken Royal.

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2008 Education Blogosphere Survey Results from Scott McLeod on Vimeo.

For those who prefer their results in a more traditional format, click here.

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Rita Ferrandino, Arc Capital Development partner and Chair of the Sarasota County, FL, democratic party is an official delegate to the convention as well as Executive Director of the Elementary Science Coalition.

A long-time education advocate, Rita has made many trips to Washington, D.C. to lobby for increased attention and funding for elementary science education in U.S. public schools. Rita and her business partner, Kevin Custer, are in Denver this week to “capture key elements of the Democratic Education Platform and responses/reactions from delegates, elected officials, education industry leaders and local voters.”

Rita will be posting convention news, interviews, updates in text and video on her DNC Education 2008 - Education Policy News from the Democratic National Convention blog throughout the week.

With a potential Democratic administration on the horizon, educators and education reformers will be watching how the Democrats’ educational policy agenda further develops during the course of the convention.

Kudos to Rita and her team. She will be featured tomorrow (August 26th) in a video post at the New York Times. Look for her there after you check out her blog.

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Yesterday I participated in a webinar sponsored by Target Marketing Magazine that focused on getting the most out of your emails to customers. The presenters were sharing the results of a study across four vertical markets. I learned some amazing facts such as:

1. 30% of marketers do not send an email to interested prospects within 30 days of the prospect making herself known to the company through a subscribe/send me more information process.
2.  Another 25% do not send the first email within 9 days.
3. 60% do not send welcome messages.
4. 70% collect enough information in the sign-up process to customize messages and then don’t use the information.

I don’t know about your experience, but the educational publishers I have worked with spend enormous amounts of time crafting their email communication with their customers. Although, K-12 publishing was not one of the vertical markets surveyed in this instance, it does make me wonder what kind of waste would we see in our own industry? Read the rest of this entry »

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As school districts across the country have come clean about their real graduation rates in recent years, there has been anecdotal evidence from both colleges and businesses of the need to put newly minted high school graduates through a series of remedial courses to tune up their academic skills before they can handle first year college coursework or move into the ranks of workers.

George Winship, editor of The Anderson Valley Post in California writes about how public school failure financially impacts California citizens. Read the rest of this entry »

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